Newsletter

Ethics commission 'wish list' waiting for Legislature

TALLAHASSEE - Although election season is still in full swing, the Florida Commission on Ethics is readying its wish list for lawmakers when they leave the campaign trail and return to the capital.

The commission has developed a package of 11 proposed ethics reforms, but the politics of the Legislature requires it focus on a limited number.

This year, the commission is actively pushing two: an increase in the civil fine it can impose — from $10,000 to $25,000 — and another that would put teeth into the law requiring elected and appointed officials to file financial disclosure forms.

A candidate can be fined up to $1,500 for failing to file, but the issue is dropped if the fine isn’t paid after four years. There are $174,136 in fines the commission has had to write off in recent years.

“It aggravates me that an elected or appointed official who does not bother to fill out a disclosure form and just gets away with it,” said Matt Carlucci, a Jacksonville insurance salesman and Gov. Rick Scott’s most recent appointment to the commission.

The commission wants to be able to file a lien against the property of an official who does not pay the fine. As the commission’s legislative liaison, it is Carlucci’s job to shepherd the plan through the Legislature.

The change applies to so-called “automatic” fines. If candidates do not turn in a financial disclosure form, but no one files a formal ethics complaint against them, they are automatically given the fine. If an ethics complaint is filed against a non-filer, there is a separate process.

So far, Carlucci, a Republican, has gotten state Rep. Charles McBurney, R-Jacksonville, to agree to sponsor the fine bill in the House and talked about it with Scott and incoming Speaker of the House Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel.

“I was approached about doing the bill, and was happy to,” McBurney said. “I really do think our ethics laws in the state need a stronger enforcement mechanism.”

Recent years have not been kind to ethics legislation.

State Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland, has filed legislation five times that would prohibit lawmakers from voting on a bill when they have a conflict of interest. It went down in flames each time.

McBurney said this year could be different.

“I’ve received positive feedback on the overall concept of the bill from both the speaker’s office and governor’s office,” he said. “From what I’ve heard on the Senate side, they are also receptive.”

The reality in Tallahassee is the reason the ethics commission is only pushing a few of its recommendations.

“In the past, we have had more complex bills that got weighed down,” said Kerrie Stillman, the commission’s spokeswoman. “We hope this approach will make the bill more aerodynamic.”

One of the commission’s recommendations that won’t be in McBurney’s bill is making state elected officials “declare a conflict before participating, abstain, and file a voting conflict memo afterward,” according to a list of recommendations passed by the commission. The board also backed off a controversial proposal allowing it to initiate an investigation without first receiving a complaint. Commissioners have pushed the idea in the past, but it never grew legs.

“That’s pretty tough to get through the Legislature,” Carlucci said.

Commissioners did recommend allowing them to initiate investigations on a “limited” basis, and giving them the power to start an investigation based on a referral from the governor’s office, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, a statewide prosecutor, state attorneys, the chief financial officer and the Department of Financial Services. Similar proposals have been floated in the past.